


Where the Shadows Lie

by neverwondernever (thatgbppfrom10880MP)



Series: Within [8]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 14:44:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8165575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatgbppfrom10880MP/pseuds/neverwondernever
Summary: A short fic about Mairon towards the end of the Third Age.





	

His quarters were in the absence of noise and that silence was palpable. He had no desire to move from his chair, to create something where there was nothing. He was settled in his pain and it would make no difference if he distracted himself from it. He had carried that pain with him through the ages, observing the births and deaths of Men and Orcs. It was unshakable.

He burned with a new loss. He felt the void of his power, the pain in his hand where his ring-finger was missing. It ached, that phantom limb, and worked to distract him.

The light in his room cast weakly, and all the riches of it had long-faded. The once carmine and gold thread tapestry had dulled to faded pinkish grey and the threadwork had frayed and lost all luster. The rock and metal walls had lost their sheen and had become pitted. The delicate mastery of work was lost. It was a room to reflect him.

He closed his eyes, but it did not dispell the darkness. It was ever-present and unrelenting. He could pick at the threads of it, a deep, sickly webbing spread across him. He could find it in all corners of his room, and beyond, the despairing land of his rule. It stretched through the whole of the land, even reaching up into the Mountain of the Sky.

He avoided that thread fervently. Shame drove him from approaching his Master’s brother, yet even worse was the understanding that the High King too ached with loss. There was a void in all their hearts.

He had never lost connection with his Ring. All he had to do was follow the shadows. He felt along that sticky line, like a decrepit interloper on some terrible spider’s web, fearing that he himself may get caught while he preyed on those others who managed to be ensnared. He could find them then, sensing their pain and fear, their struggle with loss of light.

If only he could grasp it, return it to him, perhaps he could be the master of the web.

That was his thought at the time of its creation. It was a manifest of his own self, a piece he tore out of him, like a kidney to wear, and with hope, he could connect to the shadows in all hearts. With great seething darkness, he had hoped to control them through it, but this was his shade self. Just as he was fire, he was the plays of shadows beyond it and his fire self had much different desires than tyrannical rule of the planet.

It was a simple solution, to him. Create a tool for controlling the darkness in the hearts of all and he could then, perhaps, control his own.

It was a fruitless affair, but it gave him its small comfort. The truth of it was there was a piece of the land now missing–a titanic piece. He knew all felt it, even those who had sent him far beyond, locking him beyond the Door of Night.

When they had cast him into the Void, they had cast themselves in as well.

And now, with that missing piece, those unnatural shadows had infected. He saw it for what it was: the bite of the spider, that great hulking terror from the Void, she who is absence of Existence. He felt her children along the borders of his existing realm, but he knew them to be found everywhere. The Gloomweaver was productive and once she gained entrance, she was an infection that lingered, some times quietly in the corners, and other times, wandering forth, bold and present. It was all the same to him.

For a time, when he held his Ring of Power, he was both fire and shadow. He had wrenched the dark web from the Void. He had only begun to explore and understand it. It was a moss that grew in the twilight, an unseen thing that parasitized on all life. But he could gain from it then, with the Ring, sworn in creation to the shadows. He had found the Door of Night. He had hunted for a way beyond, and he had understood before it was torn from him, that there were many reaches from their world of Existence to the Void beyond.

The shadows had hunted him eagerly after his loss of the Ring. The children of the Eater of Light had pressed in, eagerly consuming his weak fire.

That was as he was now, gloom was fore front. It reigned, swelling to consume all who bore the Ring. Only Flame Imperishable could rival and banish it. His own fire was weak and for it, he was precise and cruel. It was imperative he regained the Ring, rightfully binding fire and shadow yet again. To destroy it, he knew, would be his end, the end of that precious life-giving fire.

He would continue his plans, his war–that sorrow-making affair–for control of himself. No longer could he allow his two halves apart.

As great weariness washed over him, he felt that crushing pang of longing. He desired the comfort of that banished, but there was no rest for as long as he was two halves, for as long as there was the void within him.


End file.
